I’m not trying to end to our conversation with people in these categories. I’m trying to clarify the position of progressives by comparison with competing voices in the “progressive” movement. I put progressive in quotation marks because there are non-progressive participants in this movement. In fact, there are categories of participants that we may not be aware of. I’m thinking of socially conservative Marxists, progressive Trump supporters, and the Greeks. Everyone who differs with us is important for purposes of comparison if nothing else. But who are the progressives’ friends?
We can learn from our exchanges with them if we have the courage to ask hard questions and disagree when necessary. But if we keep silent about our differences the conversation can’t help but be empty and purposeless, and it will become vulnerable to special interests. The consequences of capitulation on our part will no doubt be very unpleasant.
Aside from enriching our debates, many of these ‘voices’ have served our causes. One individual in particular has worked hard to advance our agenda for the environment. We could not have accomplished the things Pope Francis has accomplished in such a short time and I plan to remember what he has done and honor him for his service to us. However, I think the time has come to identify what is American in the progressive conversation and for that matter, what is progressive about it.
Occupy Wall Street and Marxism
Since Occupy Wall Street burst on the scene we’ve seen a lot of Marxist rhetoric from the alternative media. Most people who subscribe to these channels don’t know anything about Marxism except that it claims to be a solution to our present troubles. Likewise, they don’t know anything about Occupy Wall Street.
Unfortunately, it is likely that the agenda some of our allies are espousing will keep everything the same. For example Caleb Maupin, a “Marxist” on YouTube, has been insisting that Marxism has always been socially conservative. This is a direct challenge to progressive support for Roe v Wade. Similar to right-wing pundits, he resorts to a litany of Margaret Sanger’s racism and Malthusianism to justify his position and to ‘prove’ that Roe v Wade was a misguided piece of legislation from the beginning.
It is also important for progressives to speak frankly about Roe v Wade and how it constrains our conversation. The right for a woman to obtain an abortion–which is a medical procedure and not technically a political issue–is a very low bar as far as women’s rights are concerned. It is sad that we are forced to continually fight for it. Unfortunately, the fight for Roe v Wade, which is already the law of the land, is as progressive as we are allowed to be in this political climate. I regret this situation while I acknowledge the fight as necessary. I also regret the way we are forced to be cheerleaders for abortion in response to conservatives’ obsession with it.
Was Occupy Wall Street Socially Conservative?
I believe Maupin was associated with Occupy Wall Street, which also claimed to have a Marxist foundation. Was OWS proposing socially conservative policies too? This possible association is pretty enlightening, given that OWS temporarily took over our conversation in its early days. Were they proposing their own agenda for the conversation?
This leads me to wonder whether the mutual admiration expressed between OWS and Vatican II Catholics indicates a deeper alliance than we realize. Again, this is not a rejection of their ideas. It is a request for clarification.
For progressives, social conservatism usually implies control of women. This is not a progressive position.
Reproductive Rights Are Not Faith-based
Some will say that women have always dealt with social control and the country has more important things to worry about at this time. That may be true, but what if the problems we are facing are a result of our culture’s control of women? I’ve written about this in the past and I will write more in the future.
Marxism on Population Control
Another Marxist, Loren Goldner, claims that humans don’t have population limits like other species do because humans continually interact with the environment to create new environments.
The universalism of Marx rests on a notion of humanity as a species distinct from other species in its capacity to periodically revolutionize its means of extracting wealth from nature, and therefore is free from the relatively fixed laws of population which nature imposes on other species.
This is clearly a matter of faith and I completely disagree with it. I also believe it is contrary to the progressive agenda which advocates slowing population growth as much as possible and finding ways to care for the population we do have. It is my understanding that this is the reason we fight for better management of the environment.
Marx and Engels Use Class Analysis for Male-Female Relations
Goldner’s praise of Marx and Engels on the importance of quality relations between men and women falls into this discussion about how humanity creates its own environment. Basically Marxists deal with this issue under the heading of class. This of course, diminishes the standing of women. On the contrary, I would argue that male-female relations are in a class of their own.
Male-female relations should be decided by customs within the extended family, not by Marxist theory or work arrangements. However, Marxists don’t want to talk about this any more than capitalists do. They would prefer to discuss same-sex marriage and gender rights. That way, they don’t have to make any changes to the fundamental position of women.
Same-Sex Marriage and Trans Rights
I agree that discrimination against gays and trans-people must be illegal, but the interesting thing in this development is the lack of attention to the position of women. Why do we see this convergence of the left and right on women?
It is clear to me that right-wing talking points, regardless of whether they come from the right or the left, cannot refute the current progressive movement. Our agenda is the only sensible response being offered at this time to the realities of human existence. But if the “Marxists” are successful in winning over the progressive movement, nothing will change because their policy proposals are identical to the Right and the Democratic establishment in the only ways that really matter. They negatively influence our relationship with nature and the way our culture deals with women.
Loren Goldner on Marx and Civil Society
Goldner envisions the following options given our current predicament:
The fundamental question before the international left today is whether or not Marx was (as this writer believes) right to think that civil society could be abolished…on a higher level (which preserves and deepens the positive historical achievements of civil, that is, bourgeois society) and not on a lower level, as happened in Soviet-type societies. The second question, which follows hard on the first, is: if Marx was wrong about the critique of civil society, and was in fact a protototalitarian, what, if anything remains valid in his critique of political economy and its programmatic implications?…
I haven’t yet said anything under the heading of progressive Trump supporters. It seems to me this category overlaps with the people who supported Jill Stein in 2016 and those who are now arguing that Trump is better on foreign policy than Biden. It also overlaps with those who have been refuting the DNC’s claim of Russian interference.
I agree that the DNC is an embarrassment in many ways, but their opponents’ arguments verge on support for Putin, who is seen by many Christians as a champion for Christianity. I would argue that there is one good reason to vote for Joe Biden and it can’t be rationalized in order to drum up support for Trump.
Trump’s Covid Response
During the covid19 pandemic Donald Trump has actually carried out policies that he knew would kill more people in blue states, and especially people of color. In other words, he has not only admitted to homicidal tendencies, he has acted on this impulse. Any progressive who argues that we should consider Trump as a candidate should not be trusted. We don’t know if Joe Biden will be better, but at least he has not admitted to being homicidal!
Unfortunately, the DNC is replaying Hillary’s 2016 choice of a vice presidential running mate. Biden’s new running mate, Kamala Harris, is like a clone of Tim Kaine in her unpopularity with progressives. Therefore I think it is possible that the Democrats don’t want to win in 2020 and that they didn’t want to win in 2016. The only choice left to us is to turn out in such large numbers that Joe Biden wins in spite of himself.